A mom and two kids were killed when flames leapt from an SUV to their home. Authorities say the fire was set; family members disagree.

Case in brief

Billi Romans, 51; her 12-year-old son, Caleb; and her daughter, Ami, 16, died in a fire at the
home the family rented on Lilly Chapel-Opossum Run Road in Madison County on April 6, 2008, just
after midnight. Pete Romans, her husband and the father of their children, escaped.

Reward

Central Ohio Crime Stoppers is offering up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest and
conviction in this case. Another $5,000 is available from the Blue Ribbon Arson Committee. Tips can
be submitted anonymously online at Central Ohio Crime Stoppers, www.stopcrime.org, or by calling
Crime Stoppers at 614-461-8477 or toll-free at 1-877-645-8477. Information, without the promise of
anonymity, also can be directed to Special Agent Gregg Costas of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal
Identification & Investigation at 740-845-2648.

Keys to the case

The fire started in the family's 2001 Ford Expedition that was parked under a carport next to
the house.

An accelerant had been poured in the truck to fuel the fire.

Timeline

2008

April 5 and into April 6

•
6 p.m.: The family settles in at home for the evening. Pete and Caleb watch a Star
Wars movie, and Billi dozes in a chair. Ami stays in her room.

•
10 or 10:30 p.m.: Caleb wakes Pete, who also is dozing, and says he is going to
bed. A short time later, Pete sees that Billi is still asleep in the family room, so he goes to
bed.

•
Near midnight: Pete says that Billi wakes him with a scream that there is a fire.
He says he can see an orange glow out back where the Expedition is. There is no smoke in the house
except "as if you'd burned a pie," he says, and he grabs his keys and runs past Billi to move his
Chevrolet pickup truck away from the house because he had just filled it with gas and doesn't want
it to explode.

Pete has told investigators that the fire kept him from re-entering the back door and that the
front door was locked.

•
12:03 a.m.: Ami calls 911.

•
12:04 a.m.: Billi also calls 911.

•
12:22 a.m.: Fire crews arrive to find the home engulfed because the propane lines
next to the truck and the house have been breached. They find Pete collapsed in the nearby yard of
the landlord's home; he is flown to Ohio State University Medical Center with minor burns and smoke
inhalation, treated and released.

April 16: The Expedition is initially inspected.

June 26: Three days of testing begin on the truck at a laboratory in Michigan.

Her 16-year-old daughter, Ami, is on her own phone simultaneously with another emergency
dispatcher as the fire breaches the walls. "Oh, my gosh. It's in my house," Ami yells. "Oh, my
gosh."

The dispatcher asks Billi whether all of the children are out of the house. She tells him she is
trying. Then, her one last frantic cry: "Get out."

The dispatcher tells Billi to hold on while he radios for fire crews and medics. There are
coughs in the background, and then neither dispatcher can get anyone on the other end of the lines
to answer them.

When firefighters arrive at the modular home on Lilly Chapel-Opossum Run Road in Madison County
minutes later, the house is engulfed in flames.

Billi and her two children died in that fire on April 6, 2008, just after midnight. Pete Romans,
who had just celebrated his 24th wedding anniversary with Billi a month earlier, made it out alive.
He was flown to Ohio State University Medical Center, treated and released later that day.

"Terrible things happen to people, and it puts a benchmark in your life. It was a life-defining
moment," said Billi's best friend, Cathy Snider. "You do what you can and ask God to give you the
strength for the rest. You have to resist asking why."

The family's 2001 Ford Expedition had caught fire in the carport, steps from the home's back
door. It was under recall for potentially faulty cruise-control wiring.

But after more than a year of investigation that involved chemists, engineers, scientists,
forensic mechanics and metallurgists, authorities concluded that someone had poured an accelerant
inside the SUV.

The state fire marshal's office ruled it arson in August 2009. No one has been arrested or
charged.

Still today, however, the Romans' inner circle of relatives and friends say they do not think
that the fire was set; a lawsuit filed against Ford Motor Co. and others by Pete and the estate
remains unsettled.

Ron Stemen, a fire and explosion investigator with the fire marshal's office, said he stands
behind the arson ruling 100 percent.

The 911 call from Billi is the most-awful 45 seconds he has ever heard, he said. "It hurt me to
listen to it. I'm working for that little boy and for that girl. I'm working for their mom. They're
the ones who deserve answers."

There are many pictures of Ami Romans, but one stands out: Her stunning blue eyes peep from
under her wide-brimmed, black cowboy hat, and she is flashing a beguiling smile.

Even now, 19-year-old Zach Snider says simply, "She's beautiful."

Zach is Cathy's son, and he and Ami had been "dating" - as much as two 13-year-olds can date -
since the eighth grade at Grove City Christian School. They were nearly inseparable.

Ami, he recalls, wanted to be an emergency medical technician or an Army nurse. She was a fierce
competitor, a basketball and volleyball star.

She admired her dad, who once was a champion powerlifter. Zach laughed when he called her
"scrappy and tough."

Ami wrote in a scrapbook she made for Zach that she was hooked when she introduced him to her
horse. He pulled a peppermint from his pocket and fed it to her beloved Buster.

Zach is a college freshman, studying broadcast journalism and videography at Mount Vernon
Nazarene University. He misses Ami, but he had to move on.

Still, what happened that night made him stronger, more faithful.

"Anytime something bad happens, I can take it," he said. "There's nothing you can do to me to
hurt me now. I've been through the worst."

Caleb Romans was crazy about sports. Baseball and football were his passions, but in the
local high-school basketball games, he almost always was the first to win a free hot dog by hitting
a three-point shot during intermission.

His dad coached his teams, and the two were always together. They hunted or fished every chance
they got.

After the fire, the youth pastor at Grove City Nazarene Church asked each of Caleb's classmates
to share a word that described him. He shared their thoughts during the family's memorial
service.

The kids called Caleb athletic, talented, awesome and strong. They said he was friendly, kind
and loyal. They labeled him hilarious, silly and loud. They called him lovable.

"Caleb was just a little mischievous-looking kid," Cathy says. "Everybody wanted him for their
own."

Billi Romans was a mama bear. People joked that no one wanted to sit near her during any
of her kids' games because she could be a little, well, enthusiastic.

But she really was an encourager. As the receptionist at her children's parochial school, she
gave hugs and prayers the way a hotel doorman hands out hellos.

"Billi didn't hold anything back. Ever," Cathy says.

And then there was her beautiful singing voice. "Music straight from heaven," Cathy called
it.

After Billi died, Cathy asked the folks at Grove City Nazarene for a DVD of a Sunday morning
service in which Billi had sung her favorite song. Cathy still pops in the recording of
ItWas a Great Thing on some mornings and sings with her friend to welcome the day.

The Lord had brought me through all of my trials,and when I failed him, he didn't cast me away. He stood right by me through all of my troubles;
when I was lost, he didn't let me go astray.

After the fire, the Expedition was inspected over three days at the Motor Vehicle Forensic
Services Laboratory in Livonia, Mich. Witnessing it were 19 people, including state and local
investigators and representatives or attorneys for various insurance companies, for Ford and for
the Romans family.

That analysis concluded that neither the cruise-control switch nor any other mechanical or
electrical failure on the Expedition caused the fire, said Eamon Costello, chief assistant Madison
County prosecutor.

Among the evidence: The switch and other engine parts were burned from the outside in, not the
other way around as they would have been had the fire started internally; burn patterns indicated
the fire started in the cab; and the horn can clearly be heard blaring on the 911 call, something
that would not have happened if the fire had been mechanical.

Columbus lawyer Perry W. Doran filed the lawsuit against Ford on behalf of Pete and the estate.
He said the report that prosecutors are relying on is flawed and that his independent experts have
evidence to refute it. He declined to give specifics.

The forensic mechanic who wrote the official report for investigators said the fire was set with
"a significant quantity" of an accelerant on the driver's side.

The bulk of the interior had burned, but so much flammable material had been poured in the truck
that it had penetrated what remained of the metal floorboards, said Gregg Costas, a special agent
with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.

Madison County Prosecutor Steve Pronai asked Costas to come on board a few months ago for a
fresh perspective. Costas is knocking on doors these days seeking his own answers. But he said
skepticism that it was an arson colors the reaction of those he wants to interview. He finds
himself explaining theories to people just so they will answer his questions.

"I'm an investigator, not a salesman," Costas said. "All I'm out to do is find the truth for
Billi, Caleb and for Ami. That fire was set, and three people died because of it. In Ohio, that's
aggravated murder."

Costas said he thinks the fire was started by someone close to the family, that it's unlikely
the crime was random; the house is too remote, and the nearness of the SUV to the home made the
risk of being seen too great.

The family lived a quiet life, and nobody has a bad word to say about them, Costas said.

"To commit an arson to that degree, you gotta be pretty pissed off about something, and I'm just
not finding it."

Billi's friend Cathy remains heartbroken.

She has some contact with Billi's sisters but has lost touch with Pete. He has remarried, and he
did not return messages seeking comment for this story. Cathy does not think that anyone set the
fire, and she said no amount of evidence will convince her.

"It was a terrible, tragic accident, and it happened," she says. "As Christians, we grieve, but
we grieve with hope because death is not the end."

She draws strength from Scripture that promises she will someday be reunited with her
friend.

"When that day comes," she says, "this time apart will seem like it was in the blink of an
eye."